Troubleshoot DBMail in Sql Server 2005

On a SQL Server 2005 machine, I have DBMail setup and correctly configured. I am able to use "Notify Operator" and EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_send_dbmail to queue emails.

But the problem is the queued mails never go through. I see 10 emails in the queue when I query

SELECT * FROM msdb.dbo.sysmail_unsentitems

But if I restart the SQL Server service, all mails go through and I receive emails in my inbox.

So far this is the only pattern I could find.

So my question is: is there a way to troubleshoot DBmail? I read some steps on MSDN, but they are not of much help. Any URLs to articles that could help are much appreciated.

Have you start the service broker on MSDB ? You need the service broker on to be able to process mail queue.

Read this post on Stackoverflow.
An other link that may help you is how to troubleshoot a queue in sql.
You can also use this link to get your service broker up and running on MSDB.

Hope that those links may help you.

StackExchange Database Administrators Q#2662, answer score: 8